Hello, and thanks for reading The Cipher! We were hard at work in the blog mines to close out the week. Check out all the good stuff below, and then enjoy your weekend.
-Maitreyi
It’s A Dome That’s Shaped Like A Saddle
Lauren’s dispatch from Calgary, where the Flames are getting ready to move to a new arena.
A Helpful Explainer Of Kansas’s Lunatic Anti-Trans Law
Lucy on SB 244, which was passed by the state legislature on Thursday.
An Exquisite 2026 Formula 1 Preview For True Sophisticates
Luis and Kathryn with six storylines for you to follow heading into the season.
Two Things We Liked On The Internet Today
The afterlife of a stolen bike, from The Escape Collective
Rodger Sherman’s guide to the Paralympics
Why’d They Do Him Like This?
I was doing one of my occasional hate-reads of The Free Press when I clicked on an interview with novelist Howard Jacobson, whose new book is described as "a tragicomic exploration of the Jew-hating madness and moral inversion that overtook England after the Hamas massacres of October 7." Sounds awesome.
The interview starts with this description of Jacobson, who is 83 years old: "Howard Jacobson’s big brown eyes are ringed with purple bruises, and he has a wrist brace on his right hand. He slipped off the curb the afternoon before we met." Damn, that's crazy. Good thing Jacobson didn't have to worry about his interviewer snapping a photograph of his fucked-up face and then using it as the lead image of the resulting article.
Ah, well, nevertheless.
-Tom Ley
Artist's Corner: "Eastern Towhee" (Chris Thompson, 2026)
